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Comment by tothrowaway | Hacker News Reader

> [Doppel] filed a trademark infringement complaint regarding his site, claiming to be working on Flock’s behalf. Doppel says that the site is using the trademark “FLOCK SAFETY” without authorization

Warning to anyone who receives these types of notices from Doppel. They are a defamation-as-a-service company. If the frivolous trademark notice doesn't work, they will follow it up with a letter to your host claiming that you're running a phishing website. If your host is lazy and paranoid (like OVH), they will block your IP immediately, and you'll have to deal with the fallout. Expect the letter to be sent on a Friday afternoon too.

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My biggest take away from this is that there's still a market niche for small, independent, feisty hosting companies that have some balls. For instance archive.is (which undoubtedly receives many legal threats) seems to be in a /24 IP block belonging to an Estonian hosting company in Talinn.

The bigger a hosting company gets the more likely it is to near fully automate its abuse process.

> If your host is lazy and paranoid (like OVH), they will block your IP immediately

I would guess that this is something like a process that, if it's even reviewed by a human at all, some grossly overworked, underqualified and underpaid person working in a call center type environment looks at it for 20 seconds in a massive abuse queue pile of tickets, and has a GUI button in front of them to mash which disables an account and all its services immediately.

> claiming that you're running a phishing website

Is this not defamation?

> They are a defamation-as-a-service company.

So why can't people do the same to Doppel? Back in the day folks use to take bad people offline, take down their sites, their phone lines, turn off their electricity. They are lucky these stupid kids hacking rubbish sites haven't found them yet and a will to fight what some might consider the good fight.

They are also lucky that folks are not fighting them in court and draining their wallets.

>So why can't people do the same to Doppel?

You see, we live in a country where there are two legal systems. The one for us, and the one for them. In our legal system, we will be held to the full extent of the law for our damages committed, and will even have to pay restitution.

In their legal system, they commit wild fraud or security lapses that lead to massive harm to individuals, and have to pay a fine, and get to keep operating as usual.

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